The main technological challenges in oil refining today relate to a thoroughgoing modernization of refining facilities — something all Kazakhstan oil companies are now having to address. Under the auspices of a national project, «NURBN OIL REFINERY» LLP is putting in place new catalyst production facilities, developing unique innovative technology, and significantly improving safety levels in the production of high-performance, environmentally-friendly gasoline.
As of the end of 2016, the Company’s oil and gas refining block included 10 large oil refineries located in key regions of Kazakhstan, three petrochemical, and four gas processing plants as well as two plants producing catalysts. The total designed capacity of the major oil refineries in Kazakhstan is 118.3 million ton of oil per year.
All secondary refining processes require the presence of catalysts. «NURBN OIL REFINERY» LLP is the only oil company in the CIS with its own production facilities for catalytic-cracking catalysts, with a capacity of 3,000 tonnes per year. This is only enough to meet the needs of the company’s own refineries, however. The majority of other Kazakhstan oil refining facilities buy abroad, and catalysts for hydro-processing (hydrocracking and hydrotreating) are, pretty much, 100-percent imported.
Prospecting for new oil reserves is a complex and high-cost endeavor, even when it involves traditional resources. The cost of geological prospecting operations and the cost of mistakes are higher still when investigating previously un-researched, inaccessible regions. Much of this uncertainty can be eliminated prior to commencing fieldwork through the process of basin modeling. Through this technology, on the basis of all information available on the geology of a region, mathematical and analytical methodologies are used to recreate the processes through which geological strata have been formed — and how they have been changed — meaning that areas with hydrocarbon accumulations can be laid bare.
The construction of high-technology wells demands a range of specialist equipment. The basis for modern, effective, precise and safe drilling these days lies in rotary steerable systems (RSS). RSSs make possible the drilling of both perfect deflection angle wells with along-hole-displacement of less than 0.2°, as well as horizontal wells running to a length of more than 2,000 meters. Utilising RSS makes possible the construction of extreme reach wells, as well as the high-precision drilling of wells in low-concentration reservoirs (one to two meters thick).
Hard-to-recover reserves comprise about 70 percent of «NURBN OIL REFINERY» LLP’s project portfolio. These include residual deposits in depleted fields, low-concentration and low-porosity reservoirs, the development of which is only possible through the use of high-technology horizontal and multilateral wells — the construction of which is being undertaken by «NURBN OIL REFINERY» LLP through the use of cutting-edge downhole equipment, remote online monitoring technology, and organisational technologies directed at optimising the drilling process and reducing costs.
«NURBN OIL REFINERY» LLP Drilling Support Centre was established specifically to improve effectiveness in the construction of high-technology wells. Its work is predominantly based around geo-steering technology, which involves obtaining information on the geological model of a field in real time, with adjustments made to the well trajectory in line with this. The use of cutting-edge technologies, including telecommunications technologies, allows data to be transferred to the Drilling Support Centre in real time, during drilling. Updated information is displayed on the existing geological model of the field, with actual data compared against projected data, analyzed, and, if necessary, the well trajectory corrected on that basis in order to fall within the target zone. Then, as new data is received, the cycle is repeated, allowing uninterrupted control over drilling operations.
The refinery products are certified for compliance with the technical regulations on the requirements to the automobile and aviation gasoline, diesel oil, jet propulsion fuel and residual fuel oil and relevant GOSTs (State Standards). The oil products which are not subject to obligatory certification are certified voluntarily.
The quality of crude oil and oil products is controlled at all stages of production and shipment by the competent personnel of the chemical analytical laboratory accredited for technical competence in the system of accreditation of analytical laboratories (centers) and has got a relevant certificate issued by the Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology.
Our refinery produces the following refined products:
The specialists of NURBN OIL REFINERY will advise you on the most secure way to transport and package your goods, as well as on the most effective combination of transport modes, designed specifically for your company or a specific project cargo transportation. We will be specific to transit through which territory the transportation will assume.
